Lance Corporal Ben Keel is a playable character in Quake Champions. He makes a return from Quake III Arena, added in 14 December of 2017 update with map vale of pnath.
Biography[]
The Terran Coalition’s reverse-engineering of Slipgate travel created new frontiers – and wars. In the Subic system, thousands of mining colonists were slaughtered by the Klesk, an indigenous chitinid race. The first casualty: Lance Corporal Ben Keel, a marine on perimeter duty.
To learn what happened, Coalition scientists used neuroprosthetics and poorly understood xenobiology to resurrect Keel. He returned to life with a mostly robotic body, but with his mind and memories seemingly intact.
Only weeks later did the fugues start, each bringing longer-lasting visions of a shadowy hellscape.
Lore Scrolls[]
- Part 1
“Transcript of last perimeter contact pre-engagement, Subic IV, Sector Gamma B. KEEL, LCpl: Fourteen o’clock and all’s well! R. BRIGHTON, Sgt: Dammit, Keel. K: Sorry, Sarge. Ahem! Scheduled status report, 14 hundred hours. B: Better. What’ve you got to report? K: Jack shit, sir! B: [audible sigh] K: Seriously, Sarge. Guards are guarding, miners are mining, machines are, uh, machining. This assignment’s like desk duty, only dustier. B: You still need to take this seriously. K: I do, sir, I just... Hang on. B: Keel? K: Picking up movement near Charlie ridge. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’m going to—[static]”
- Part 2
“Partial transcript of post-engagement field report, S&R Unit Bravo, Subic IV, Sector Gamma M. TAGAWA, PFC: This is... I’ve never seen anything like this! OPERATIONS CONTROL: Steady on, Tagawa. T: We’re not gonna find any survivors. Nothing here’s even shaped like a human... Wait a sec. .[wet, thumping sounds] OC: Report, soldier! T: Uso! I—I think this was Lance Corporal Keel! What... What were they shooting at us, chainsaws?! OC: Establish visual link. .[electronic hum] OC: Head and upper spine seem largely intact. May be viable for Project Osiris. Wrap him up and bring him home, Tagawa.”
- Part 3
“Partial transcript of pre-op log 5, Project Osiris D. MARCUS, 2ndLt: What is this shit? I told them zero cranial damage, complete spinal cord. R. MUGABI, Sgt: They want to know what he saw. Ma: This is an untried procedure. We’d have to use the altered progenitor cells recovered at the Tetsuo site just to regrow his occipital— Mu: They weren’t asking, sir. Ma: [long pause] Fine. We’ll get him talking. But don’t expect me to blow all my resources making sure everything’s hooked up right. If he forgets how to eat or do long division, that’s his problem. “
- Part 4
“Transcript recorded from neural interface, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel All that work to bring me back with that mutated Frankenstein goop, and I couldn’t tell them a thing. Damn Spikers got me center mass before I even saw them coming. They don’t think it’s as funny as I do. Not sure what I think of all this. Everything moves like it should, but nothing feels right when I touch it. Figure I should be a lot more horrified; maybe this circuitry in my head’s keeping my emotions in check. I should be pissed about that, too, shouldn’t I?”
- Part 5
“Transcript recorded from neural interface, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel Back in basic. Just what I always wanted. Guess they’re right, though; we’ve got to know what this new body can do. Apparently, two of those things it can do are “run faster than the guys trying to run away” and “hit a lot harder than I used to.” I’ll have to stop by the infirmary later and apologize, if they’re conscious. Got shot. Felt like a bee sting. I’m told my senses can be reprogrammed to register stimuli different than they used to? I need to make some requests.”
- Part 6
“Transcript recorded from neural interface, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel They can reprogram my taste buds! Shit, I should’ve gotten my ass shot off years ago. MREs taste like real food! I mean, high-end sirloin, real New York spaghetti and sauce, the works. Only thing they can’t manage is Memaw’s Salty Honey Pie. Nothing I try tastes like the real thing. Maybe they can also figure out what’s wrong with my eyes. Had a couple moments after training where I suddenly didn’t see the field anymore. Saw… well, somewhere else. Ugly. I hope the process isn’t going bad on me.”
- Part 7
“Transcript recorded from neural interface, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel I thought I was okay. Those visions, the spells… they only ever hit after practice or deployment. I’ve engaged the Klesk half a dozen times without trouble. But today... One minute I’m mowing down Spikers. The next? Mountains of ash. Broken spires. Shadows, swirling and twisting, like the sun can’t stand still. But there is no sun. And screams from nowhere, constant. Lost almost half an hour, and almost forty men. Don’t know how I survived. I need to know what’s wrong with me, or I’m no good to anyone.”
- Part 8
“Transcript of partial testing procedure, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel D. MARCUS, 2ndLt: I told them. I told them! R. MUGABI, Sgt: He’s been operational for months, doc. This— Ma: I told them. Mu: Yes, you did. Ma: So is the problem in the cortical interface? It is, isn’t it? Mu: We… can’t tell. The system hasn’t recorded any of these fugues he reported. Ma: That’s impossible! Mu: All we get is fragmented data. Ma: Organics? Mu: Nothing wrong we can detect. Anywhere. Ma: Shit. Take him off active duty until we can figure this out. I told them…”
- Part 9
“Final transcript recorded from neural interface, subject Osiris epsilon: B. Keel Been off active duty for weeks. Spells getting worse. The place I see is… horrible. It’s a hallucination, something about my trauma or what they’ve done to me. Except what if it’s not? Last couple times, it felt like it was physically tugging at me. If the circuits can’t record it, maybe they’re keeping me from blocking it out. So I’m shutting down the system. Let my brain handle it alone, untethered. Then I’ll know. I can feel it coming on. Interface shutdown in three... two... One.”
Artifact[]
A slightly damaged slice of Memaw’s Salty Honey Pie that Keel stores in a small vacuum chamber within his cybernetics. He intends to save it for “a really bad day.”
Statistics[]
| Start | Max | |
|---|---|---|
  |
125 (Overmaxed) | 100 |
  |
75 | 125 |
  |
300 | Uncapped |
Abilities[]
- Active: Grenade Swarm - Keel is equipped with grenade launchers which operate on a cooldown. Each grenade takes 10 seconds to cooldown, and up to 5 grenades can be stored for use. After rebalance abilities, count of grenades reduce to 3
- Passive: Stockpile - Keel can reduce the cooldown of his ability by collecting any ammo box.
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- In Quake III Arena, Keel's backstory says he was killed on Subic 3, not Subic IV.